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“And how’s your mum, Eastern?”
“Fine,” Eastern responds, coughing to clear his throat. “Mum’s more concerned about us. Though to be honest, I haven’t really told her the full extent of what’s going on. She’s better off not knowing. Braydon needs to be her priority.” He looks at me then and gives me a shaky smile. “He says hello, by the way, and wanted to know what colour your hair is now. When I told him it was pink he said he bet you look beautiful.”
“Sweet boy,” I whisper, my heart twisting inside my chest. Braydon has always been such a kind, thoughtful, happy kid. So full of humour and courage. He’s never sad and never ever complains about his disability. He could show us all a thing or two about strength and living in the moment.
“Good, I’m glad they’re… okay,” Mr Carmichael says, then winces when I glare at him. There’s that word again.
Okay.
We’renotokay.
“No one’s o-fucking-kay,” I stress, allowing the sudden bitter anger to fill me up. Allowing the flame of it to burn at the ice encasing my heart.
It feels good to be angry. Anger is better than pain and apathy. It’s better than soul-numbing guilt. I fuel it, projecting my self-hate and anger onto Mr Carmichael. The seconds stretch into minutes as I just sit staring at him. I wait for him to say something,anythingto make this better, to make this a dream and not stark reality. But he doesn’t.
Eastern watches on in awkward silence. I don’t know what I expected really. Every adult besides Tracy has only ever let me down. Mr Carmichael is no different.
“Thanks for letting us call home,” Eastern says when the silence gets too heavy. He makes a move to stand but Mr Carmichael holds his hand up.
“Wait a minute, will you?” he says, shaking his head as though snapping out of whatever thoughts that had caused him to shut down so epically.
Eastern sits back down. “What?”
“I know this hasn’t been easy on you all…”
“No shit,” I spit, wanting to fight, wanting to let out all this bitterness and guilt inside of me. It needs an outlet before it tears me apart.
“I had a call from Crown yesterday. Of course, I didn’t tell him what’s going on, only that you’re working on finding out as much as you can. I managed to get him off your back and not come here to check up on you until we can sort this out…”
“Offourbacks?” I laugh bitterly. “More like get him offyourback. What do you think he would do if he knew about Pink, huh? This place would be shut down.”
“We’re not telling him about Pink because we’re protecting her, remember?”
“Protecting her? No one’s doing a damn thing as far as I can fucking tell!”
He sighs, pressing his thumb and forefinger against his eyes before finally looking over at me. “We haven’t had a chance to talk about how you feel about the King being your father…” he says, conveniently changing the subject.
I scoff, acid filling my veins with bitterness. “You want to talk about that monster now, after what he did…?”Because of me, I don’t add. That thought hits me like a sucker punch and I have to stifle the groan trying to escape my lips.
“You need to talk about it, Asia. Tell me how you feel,” he insists.
“How the fuck do youthinkI feel?”
“Disappointed?” he asks me, nailing it. I’m angry too. Gutted. Heartbroken. The disappointment is the worst. Not that it matters now. I’ve no right to garner sympathy, not after what I’ve done.
“You would be too if you were related to that bastard.”
“He’s not great father material, no,” Mr Carmichael agrees, wincing.
“He’s not my father, he never fucking will be.”
“And Monk? How about him…”
My head snaps up, my nostrils flaring. “Don’t mention his name,” I seethe and this time Mr Carmichael flinches.
“Perhaps this is a conversation you need to have with Mr Burnside.”
“What, you mean a conversation where we discuss how I’m not the daughter of a Chinese Emperor like my mum had peddled all these years, but the daughter of some twisted psychopath?”
